You don’t need a crystal ball to predict that the future of the Internet in India is mobile and vernacular. The mobile-first internet growth will be inclusive of more rural & more empowered women.
The 2011 Census showed that English is the primary language (mother tongue) of 256,000 people, the second language of 83 million people, and the third language of another 46 million people, making it the second-most widely spoken language after Hindi. But it should be remembered that Hindi in itself has over 50 dialects that are spoken by millions of people.
The point is, while most of our transactional and operational function takes place in English, we need to climb up the ladder and roll out the offerings in regional languages – for better and clear communication, ease of understanding and enhanced business results.
To bring a change in the rudimentary checkout flow that shoppers across India have been following, we, at Razorpay are glad to announce our latest offering – Hindi checkout, with 6 more regional languages to follow soon. This article talks about the backstory and the problem statement, the solutioning and more.
The intent & entrance checks
With easy and economical accessibility to the internet, smartphone devices and knowledge via different platforms, there has been a rise in the users from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities when it comes to online shopping.
As people in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities come online and open up to paying online they are often faced with interfaces that are not in their mother tongue. There are chances that they find the desired products and navigate through the app or website somehow. But when it comes to accepting payments, it gets a little difficult. And even if they figure things out, conversions are going to be much higher in the cases where Payment Checkout is available in their preferred language.
Introducing Razorpay Vernacular Checkout for higher conversions
As new vernacular first users start using payments in India, Standard Checkout needs to cater to this new demographic by making it easier for them to understand what’s present on Checkout and how they can use it. To start with, Razorpay has launched Vernacular Checkout in Hindi.
Going forward, we’ll be launching the checkout in other languages like Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati and Kannada as well.
While we kick-off with the first ever Indian vernacular checkout system, there is a need to ensure that every customer gets an offer to switch back to English, just in case. With Razorpay Vernacular Checkout, end consumers would have an option to select a preferred language on Checkout. Our systems will automatically detect a user’s preferred language through their browser and show Checkout in that language.
In case the user uses Checkout in a language other than what’s displayed it would set a default for that user. Alternatively, merchants can set a default language for their user base and can pass us a language to show Checkout in at a per payment level. To maintain uniformity, Razorpay ACS page and error codes would also be rendered in vernacular language.
Early data shows that there is an increase in revenue of up to Rs.50,000 when users make the payment in Hindi as compared to English.
Please note: The feature will be available by default on Standard Checkout to all Razorpay users. The default for all businesses would be set to automatically detect browser language and show Checkout in that language. Businesses have the liberty to change this setting to show Checkout in a particular language only.
In conclusion
Going vernacular is ‘the’ way to onboard untapped geographies. With the internet easing lives in all the possible ways, having an experience that can make them feel at home and leave them with a delightful experience is only going to bring them back to you.
With payments being a sensitive topic, streamlining and easing it is the need of the hour. Join the community of over 8.5 lakhs businesses, offer what everyone else is missing out on and get set to #OutgrowOrdinary.
